


Grace in Darkness

by Rand0mR3belWithoutAClause05



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Study, Father-Son Relationship, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Minor Violence, Slow Burn, hang in for the ride, like very very slow burn, pete is obsessed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25006141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rand0mR3belWithoutAClause05/pseuds/Rand0mR3belWithoutAClause05
Summary: A soulmate AU- but it is so much more than that. Every morning you wake up, on your wrist you can find a line of the worst thing your soulmate has done/will do that day.William is an editor working for the show ‘A Little Late with Jack Welsh’. But his aspirations continuously grow destructive, and he is starved for adventure.It all changes, when...Update, 11/22: Currently on hiatus. My writing juices flowed away, unfortunately. I'm not feeling the relationship/story much currently, and I think Will is written slightly out of character. It is extremely frustrating. Sorry to all my dear readers.
Relationships: Jschlatt/Wilbur Soot
Comments: 94
Kudos: 516





	1. STEAL

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMERS
> 
> Firstly, thank you for reading. I appreciate every single person for accepting and liking my content, leaving feedback and choosing to read this story.
> 
> The reason why I have chosen to use their real names (mainly at the start of the fic) is to show the alternate identities that they represent. Because this fic is basically a growing-up journey and story.  
> There will not be NSFW content.  
> Please, for the sake of my anonymity, do not post pictures of this fic on Twitter, Instagram or any other websites. Do not share with Jschlatt, Wilbur, or anyone else this fic.  
> I, by doing this, am violating many boundaries and many rules- even my own. Everyone who chances upon this fic and is disgusted by me shipping real people, I tell you that I am disgusted at myself. So if you want to bash me, feel free to do so knowing that it’s probably something I’ve already told myself before.  
> Yet. The reason why I am doing this: I am an avid writer, and this is the first thing that I have ever been extremely passionate about. Not writing this fanfic means that I am denying myself a HUGE opportunity to both expand my abilities and contribute to the fandom. This is the first fanfic I’ve actually wanted to write, and I need people to have a place to read it (because otherwise I’d be handing out printed manuscripts to get feedback everyday).  
> If you do not like fanfics, don’t read this. The sole purpose of me putting a work up on this platform is both to store and to display. I am not forcing you to read anything.  
> ALL the characters in this fanfic are NOT mirrors of their real life counterparts. Keep in mind that I have brought out the ‘dark’ qualities of every person in order to make it fit the Mafia narrative. This means: good relationships will always have an unhealthy twinge to them, and bad relationships will be amplified and expanded. For example, William could be competitive to the point of putting himself and others in danger, and Schlatt could be selfish and cynical to the point that he hurts others as well. Keep in mind that their real-life counterparts would NEVER do any of this. (but, they also have bountiful good traits to compensate)  
> Lastly- this fic aims for realism, because character and world building is a skill I want to cultivate in myself. So not everything will be sunshine and rainbows. People will discriminate, they will have implicit biases, they will have OPINIONS. They will have others who they like and do not like, and that is perfectly okay.  
> Have fun reading ;)
> 
> Unbetaed- please forgive my mistakes.

William Gold has wanted from six years old to have a soulmate as lovely as his mama. She had often given comedic retellings of her soulmate meeting over the dinner table, leaving him and his sister 'ooh’ing and smirking, drowning the cheesiness of the story in mouthfuls of exploded peas.

“And you know, we thought that it was going to be something simple like ‘lie’ or ‘curse’ or ‘argue’, as it usually was. That morning, I woke up, and the first thing we saw on our wrists were-”

“‘Meet your soulmate’!” William chanted diligently, for the umpteenth time, just to feel the immense surge of satisfaction as she seamlessly continues after them,

“-and we literally screamed in excitement! Well I’m not sure if your dad did, but-”

“I did,” dad snorts- William huffs a laugh as he tries to imagine his dad screeching. Maybe with a higher pitched voice than now, and lighter on his feet as he hurls over the covers and jumps out of bed.

After dinner, William would look at his wrist with equal parts longing and curiosity, and think about what pretty lady he could encounter one day. But, pfft. Marrying was what old people did (he cringes thinking of his mom and dad), and he was far from old. He wasn’t going to settle down, make kids, eww. What a boring life.

“What d’you want to do when you grow up?” His sister asks him.

There was but a pinprick of uneasiness, thinking about the day when he grows old and starts thinking that finding your soulmate is going to be a priority. William can’t imagine it. How did old people have so much time to do that? Meanwhile, he had heard horror stories from his sister about high school and bullies and diplomas and those dreaded group projects. He hasn’t got time for soulmates.

Someday, though- he’d have a good time with his soulmate, they’d take long strolls in the park, and she would never ever annoy him like some other people do.  
William couldn’t imagine spending half his life with someone who got on his nerves.

I’m mature for my age- he can’t help but smile a little. Thinking about soulmates already!

Or maybe, he’d meet his soulmate young. He had heard of people doing that. There was a girl he had seen, on Youtube, who had met her soulmate, and she was just two years older than him. There were those who had their cousins or brother as soulmates, friends who spent years with each other before discovering that they were soulmates. Plenty people whose soulmates die.

“What’s your mark today?” William’s sister comes around to take a peek, tugging a little at his wrist. He knows it was futile to hide it - she would see eventually, his sleeve would slip down during dinner and they would see without making any comments.  
But he still cups his wrist defensively. His sister had tried using force once, and it had hurt a lot. But she was so very apologetic afterwards - and William gained a new source of leverage that day.

His sister narrows her eyes, but releases his wrist and slinks away with surprisingly little resistance. She would see it later anyway. In a family, there was no way to hide it.

“You know I’ll see it eventually, right? Soulmarks aren’t even that big of a deal. I’m okay with mine,” she insists.

He was being petty, he knew. Whatever. It was something that he didn’t feel good about. So William pouts at his sister.

“No one cares, William,” she says matter-of-factly, and walks away to find something else to do.

He crosses his legs and turns over his wrist in his lap- curled up in a bundle of darkness. There, written in blocky, rough-edged, capitalised letters: STEAL.  
It looked almost like a whisper-shout, “Hey everybody, William’s soulmate stole something today!”  
He inwardly cursed the passive-aggressive, blocky letters. Why couldn’t he get cursive like his mom?

Hers was elegant-like, something like a polished 007 criminal film.

His marks looked like something from the ten commandments, the type of ‘seven sins’ stuff he’d see in movies, written in blood.

Although- a spark of curiosity ignited in his chest, to wonder what his soulmate stole that day.  
Maybe it was a pen. Maybe two dollars they slipped into their pocket.


	2. FRAUD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We’re skipping the sweet sixteens all together.
> 
> In which: Will graduates, rather eventfully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not betaed, as always.
> 
> Thanks all the people who have commented on the previous chapter! Your kind words have encouraged me a lot and helped me through a pretty intense week. I am looking forward to posting more <3
> 
> Update schedule:  
> Probably 2/3 chapters a week. I might slow down later though >_<

William is eighteen when the word _FRAUD_ first appears across his wrist. It was different from the _STEAL_ from his childhood.

No longer an innocent ‘steal’, that came from accident, from coincidence, from curiosity. STEAL meant that William could snort and shake his head exasperatedly. STEAL meant that William could feel a little better about himself when he pockets a stray pen or marker. STEAL felt like a little secret, a relatable journal entry of youth. 

FRAUD was different. This was a deliberate thing- slathered with greed and intent.

FRAUD felt like desperation seared onto his skin, of the smell of dollar bills. William wants to scrub it off his skin like grease.

I hope you’re happy- William thinks to his soulmate vehemently.

The people whose soulmates had died- he wondered- how did they feel? Losing your soulmate, that must’ve hurt like a bitch. Yet however hard he tried, Will cannot find anything in himself to feel grateful for his own circumstances. “Let me wallow in self pity and lament for just one day,” he thought. “Let me feel sorry for myself, before I lose the right to do that altogether.”

And so, he packed up his light bag. He’d gotten used to carrying at least a kilogram with him, so the absence of his usual books was… unnerving, to say the least. There was a time when he’d use the weight of his bag to gauge whether he had left something important (like homework or files) at home. And just like always, he took the bus to his university. It was the day of the graduation photoshoot. And of course, his standard school robes did nothing to camouflage him. He towered over most of his classmates, standing at an awkward 6’5. The ‘tall’ was probably more in the range of beanstalk-tall (he was a geography nerd, nothing more to be said) than the stereotypical Alpha Male-tall.

As the bus chugged along, he let his mind wander.

_Was there really a spectrum of tallness? Fifty shades of Tall?_

After a long while, the word ‘tall’ didn’t really look right anymore, that it started tasting wrong on his tongue.

On the bus, a grand total of 8 people demanded to know about the details of his soulmark. He brushed them aside with a scowl, and they whacked him in response. At one point, he had to turn back and snap “Cut it out” when they began whispering too loudly.

Come on. He was RIGHT THERE. If you wanted to talk behind someone’s back, at least do it properly.

The sheer fucking audacity of some people really puts him in a foul mood.

.

.

.

It was a magical moment, when two soulmates found each other. Maybe I could be like that too, William thinks, just after graduation ended. There were a few pairs of soulmates every year. Everyone _said_ that the highlight of graduation ceremony was the performance by the Contemporary Dance Club, but truth to be told… even the teachers _knew_ the main event was the soulmates. (There was even a betting pool on who would end up with who, and Will would never admit to a single soul that he actually participated in it out of morbid curiosity.)

And of course, there was a pair this year. Jaime from class A-3 and Veronica from class B-4. And oh, how could he not see it earlier? There was a way that they just _clicked_ , despite Will never knowing them that well. They spoke hushed words to each other, each one tearing out of their throats like broken sobs. He could hear the little references they were making, confirming dates and events and clutching tighter to each other when everything coincided. 

_The first day I shoplifted, the first day I punched someone, the first day I got into a fight with my mom, the first day…_

It was so weird and breathtaking, seeing them recite the other’s life- like they were part of something greater, so much greater than themselves.

There was that trembling moment when the soulmark was revealed. And the teachers did not step in, the students hung around them like tatters, each person touching and caressing their own soulmark absentmindedly. They all, with wide eyes, breath held, watched. It was like a tremor that had fallen over the whole hall. William watches the pale skin of their wrists with almost a tender gaze, seeing himself in them.

He could almost hear his mom’s voice, high with unforgotten joy from another time. His own voice, chanting in tune with his sister’s. 

Everyone riding on the wave, combined with the pounding of blood in his ears, the sharp inhales and just holding it there, a few starting to cry out- seeing, as it was fated to be, the triumphant _meet your soulmate_ imprinted upon their wrist. It was a prophet, a vision, as a beautiful crystal ball of _someday that will be me._ And without warning, the hall exploded into roaring, deafening cheers as they kissed- a can of coke suddenly sailing high above their heads and showering brown droplets over the crowd. Beyond the pounding of his own heart, Will could hear catcalls and whistling, triumphant whooping from multiple directions, the school colours of yellow, grey and blue bobbing up and down, like anemone swaying on the seafloor. Students’ thundering footsteps as they shuffled closer to the fated pair, looking alarmingly like a stampede by the second. The boy’s friends from the Robotiics Club, from the same class, clapping him on the back fiercely and competing: “I’ll be your groomsman-“

“Invite me to the wedding!

“How many babies are ya planning?”

And, the most cringeworthy:

“You gonna consummate your marriage?”

Will felt his face heating up at the last one, feeling strongly compassionate to the flash of annoyance across the pair’s face.

If he meets his soulmate, the first thing he’d do would be to throw a haymaker at their them, vengeance for this damned _FRAUD_ imprinted upon his skin. And he’s going to interrogate the lady until he can worm every single detail out of her. He’s going to get an explanation for WHY she did what she did (and hope with all his heart that it was out of desperation, naivety or ignorance). And he’s going to get a grip of himself, to be disciplined so that he doesn’t end up committing fraud himself.

Not that that’s very hard to do. Any human being with an inch of morals and understanding could- William compulsively clamps down on that thought before he goes on another tangent.

He looks at the two again, walking out of the school hall much to the disappoint of the mob with ‘awwww’s going all around. It was only with the intervention of the teachers that the crowd did not mob them as they went. Hand-in-hand, leaning on each other like flames in a thunderstorm- in a little bubble of their own world.

Perhaps- there were a few more years. Maybe many more. His soulmate could be different then.

Or he was born to change them. To make them better people.

  
  


When he meets his soulmate, the first thing he’d do is beat the shit out of them.

And then he’s going to kiss them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback will always be appreciated, so don’t be afraid to critique! I am not a perfect writer, but I’m always trying to learn.
> 
> (If you find any aspects that appear OOC, you can bring it to my attention)
> 
> <3 thank you all lovely people
> 
> Edit: changed Wilbur's height to the correct 6'5 instead of 6'3


	3. First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Will makes some new friends, and struggles with himself.
> 
> Edit: Please note that the insecurities Wilbur experiences in this chapter are brought out, because right now he is painfully alone in his endeavors, and speaking from experience being lonely sucks ;-; BUT, it's not all angst forever! Wait for the next few chapters :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've extracted a part of Wilbur and Arty's (RTGame) conversations from one of their videos, but I've changed it to suit the theme.  
> It can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExZXWWQBCbQ&t=833s
> 
> Also, Carson talked a little bit about stans here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrYaRvbXDbo&t=452s , go check it out!
> 
> Hope you enjoy this story. I've introduced a whole BUNCH of characters here, and fleshed them out as efficiently as possible ;)  
> Don't worry, you will definitely be seeing more of them, I promise...

Two years later, William was pursuing a degree in video editing. It was pretty mundane life, full of coffee and Gen Z-prone items, beanies and 2am streaming.

Of course, there were his mischievous tendencies that tended to spring out like a game of whack-a-mole.

It started with something innocuous like adding a little calling-card in each video, a millisecond flash of his favorite nickname _ The Dirty Crime Boi  _ whenever he edited for a Youtuber.

There was always a rush of adrenaline when he scrolled through the comment sections of the videos he submitted, eyes wide and darting for any timestamps or indications that anyone had noticed.

There was a stray occasion where a viewer had noticed, but it never came to the general public’s attention.

And then, he received an opportunity to be one of the editors working to produce a video for A Little Late with Jack Welsh. And oh, was he excitedly rubbing his palms- thinking about all the beautiful exploits he could get away with. And the presence of other editors was a surprising challenge, but a welcome one to be sure.

On the first day of the job, he arrived with a bounce to his step. The sun was shining brightly through the London smog, and the warm reached his bones even though his eyes and nose prickled with a chilly wind.

The directing studio was not very cramped- it was in a large hall-like space segmented into short little cubicles encircling it, the floor lined with beige auditorium carpet. Vents for air-conditioning opened at the top, and cold air blew through it, bringing water vapor and condensation to the window panes at each office-cubicle.

From the center of the room, William could see every cubicle. He saw it in his mind’s eyes- his employer,  _ Jack _ , standing here. Giving a warm welcome, outlining directive plans, announcing a pay raise, perhaps giving special mentions to  _ a few outstanding employees… _

“Hey, you’re new here?”

Will startles a little, twirling around to the direction with the voice.

“Yep. Nice to meet you,” he greeted, a beat slower than he should have.

The other man smiles back. He was in somewhat of a midnight blue uniform, much like a duke or a navy sailor. Burberry? Will rattled off a few famous brands in his head. The uniform was dotted with buckles and shiny gold buttons. The only thing lacking was dramatically curled white hair to go along with the royal aesthetic. Strangely, it didn’t feel imposing, just a little goofy and comical.

Will ran a hand through his tousled hair, a force of habit. In his turtleneck and jeans, he felt woefully underdressed. It still resembled the get-up of a university graduate, the classic hipster aesthetic. And he had a beanie as well- fantastic. Might as well go all the way, then- he was the very caricature of a British ~~gen-z~~ millennial after all.

“So, here’s the office. I’m quite excited, actually. Like, this is the first time I’ve been anywhere  _ close  _ to this. What d’you think?”

Blue-Suit paused for a second, and chuckles nervously. “It’s good, I mean… I haven’t seen anything so far. I’m a little scared at how this is all gonna go,”

“A Little Late with Jack Massey Welsh, this is what revitalized the whole- Late Night Show craze,” Will continues.

The other man seems mildly interested, “Oh, really?”

“Well, the argument as to what did it is- debatable. I know, this is gonna be a weird analogy, but-” Will sniffs, “Obviously, it’s the anniversary of the moon landing, so I guess that’s one way to think about it. It’s almost quite-”

“Where are you going with this?” Blue-Suit hums, a single eyebrow delicately raised.

“Wha- this reminds me of the space race.”

Blue-Suit snuffs a laugh, and Will decides to resume his valiant efforts despite breaking into a grin himself, “There were lots of reasons why the space race happened, you know.”

“Wait, wait, hang on-” Blue-Suit doubles over, laughter bubbling through his voice, “The first man on the moon, you can’t just compare that to a Late Night Show. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, it’s not sponsored by the Jimmy Kimmel,”

“You can’t just compare, they’re not on par-” the man continues, attempting to curtail his evil cackles.

Will’s lopsided smile cracks into wheezing chortles, and he  sinks to the ground in shame, “Stop- stop laughing. Stop laughing at me.”

After they had both settled down, Will made the correct decision to introduce himself, pressing a card into the man’s hand. It was a little business card he made himself, with big chunky letters and comic sans font arranged in an  _ I did this at 1am and I’m high on caffeine _ sort of fashion. (God, comic sans. Why did he use comic sans? He was a disgrace to mankind.)

“Give me a pay raise?” Blue-Suit smiles, catching the title of the card, “That is the best marketing strategy ever.”

“Yeah. Keep that with you, or you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

The man chuckles again, “Nice to meet you,  _ Will.  _ I’m Daniel. But you can call me Arty.” He had quite an odd-sounding accent. Like, exotic American, all the sounds with a little curl to them. Especially the  _ r _ . Will never quite formed the habit of actually pronouncing his  _ rs _ , even when he sang American songs. It was something odd about Blue Suit- no,  _ Arty _ , but William found it quite endearing.

“ _ I’m  _ pretty new to this, I don’t really know how things work around here,” Arty says.

Will shuffles around awkwardly, feeling at a loss in the empty office space. “Well, don’t look at me. I came here knowing one name, carrying one bag and many prayers.” he hesitated. “Do you know anyone-”

“Arty!” A merry voice, much like a very friendly uncle, came from the doorway once again, and both of them whipped around to see.

“Hey, Pete! How are you?” Arty greets, face lighting up.

“Arty, I am doing  _ very  _ well. And this is Mr... William?”

“Yeah. Will, show him your business card.”

William passed it to Pete, who held it away and squinted his eyes. “Wow,” he finally said, tucking the card into his suit pocket. “That, Mr. William, is, fantastic. Thanks for having me.”

Pete talked with a patient, dramatic voice, dragging out the coattails of each word. It was rich, full of warmth- and if he listened hard enough he could hear a chuckle embedded in each sentence. 

“You know each other?” Will asked.

“Why not… you, do the explaining, Arty?” Pete replies. “Mr. William is… quite curious.”

So William learns that Pete and Arty had met a few years ago, when Pete was doing green-screen editing and voice acting for games, even producing some of his own. And both of them had worked together for a while, becoming pretty close. As far as he knew, there was also another man called Phil, tiredly (but warmly) described by both Pete and Arty as being the  _ ‘I’m-not-mad-I’m-just-disappointed mother hen’. _

“Remember university, guys? Remember when that was a thing?” Will shakes his head.

“Yeah. Been there, done that,” Arty sighs, a woeful frown creasing his forehead. He turned around, eyes scanning across the place. “Shall we… find a place to put our things?”

William nods and is suddenly torn between the cubicle that seemed the most secluded, backed up against the wall, or the one that appeared to be the most imposing. An overseeing position was excellent, but then again… it was risky. He didn’t exactly want to be the _big_ _man_ here.

“Pete?” He calls out, “D’you want to take this one over here?” Pete, looking particularly lost, smiled with relief and settled over.

“You know, William,” He said, opening his leather bag and setting up his desktop quickly, “This is the first time I’ve  _ met  _ you, and I am interested in knowing more.”

“Really?” He’s never heard of Pete. Which is very weird, because he’s fanatical about video games (games in general, really), and a self-proclaimed ‘social butterfly’. He’s confident that he knows most of the veterans in the game-production field. “But… Pete, you knew my name straight away.”

“That, I heard from Jack,” Pete replied, leaning on one side of the cubicle.

“You know our  _ employer _ ?”

Pete raised his eyebrows in surprise, “Have you not talked to him before this, William?”

“Oh. I don’t know, Pete-” Will grins slyly and leans back, “I’m a weak man. I don’t have much to my name, and I prefer to sneak about.”

“You know- I get the feeling that I’m going to see a lot of surprises come to light with you, William. I look forward to having fun here.”

“And is this our professional greeting?” He cocks his head.

“I would say it’s an  _ official  _ greeting, Mr. William.” Pete smiles warmly, clapping him on the back with a soft little nod.

He could get used to this.

“Are there any more people coming? It’s already past arrival time.”

“Yup, yup! Sorry, sorry, guys,” A voice rang out urgently, and one kid rushed in, followed by two men strolling leisurely behind him.

“You are late. Late, I mean-  _ really  _ late,” The lankier, brunet one snorts, sending the boy scuttling to find a seat.

“What?! Am I  _ really _ ?” The kid protests. He must not be more than seventeen, with a mop of blond hair atop his head, the energetic high voice, and the absolutely incredulous look he was giving.

“Called  _ Late _ Night Show for a reason,” the other blond man snarks, smiling wide. He goes to put down his bags quickly and comes to stand comfortably alongside them. This must be… Phil. He had quite a solid, warm figure, a comfortable British accent, and was dressed quite plainly in a t-shirt and jeans.

So Will learns that the British brunet is Jack Welsh (his employer, he reminds himself), and the other nice dude was indeed Phil. The ‘Lil boy was Tommy, an intern working under Jack. Will cannot help but let the pinch of adrenaline flood his heart, what with the melting pot of names and information dumped into his brain.

“Hello,” Jack says to the room.

“Hello, Jack,” Will replies, tentatively.

“Oh, God. Christ. I didn’t see you there!"Jack gasps theatrically, sending them both into laughter.

“Hi, how are you doing- Will?” he continues.

“I’m good, thank you, Jack,” Will replies, a little too eager to get off the topic of himself and find out more about this absolute  _ character _ . “Nice to meet you, finally. Jack Welsh in the flesh.”

Jack smiles widely, “This is long overdue, isn’t it?”

“It sure is.”

Jack bounds up, voice going comically high- “D’you want to be my editor then, Will?”

“You know what, I think I do, Jack,” William frowns as if considering it.

“ _No way_ , seriously!” 

“I mean, I had an inkling that was what I was going to be doing when I came here,” he snarks right back, sending Jack into chuckles and a small smattering of claps.

It was alarming that this man had star power, Will thought. And the more he shone, the greater the audience William would have to conduct his… little 'performances'. It stirred up a little warmth and a small trickle of adrenaline in his heart. Oh, he was loving Jack already.

“So, ladies and gents,” Jack says, clapping his hands together and gesturing to the room- “Go nuts. I’m looking forward to where you’re gonna take this show, and I’m along for the ride.”

Tommy whooped from the other end of the room, and everyone joined in, laughing. 

.

.

.

Of course, it all starts with his signatures. Calling cards, if you will.

The  _ Dirty Crime Boi  _ already had a legacy of its own, so it was easy enough to keep up the family tree. 

And so  _ The Dirty Crime Boi  _ made his first debut on the fifteenth episode of the Little Late with Jack Show when Jack was quite assured in his editing skills (with good reason, Will loved working for Jack, after all, and the degree in editing definitely helped) and he was given more rein over the show.

He’s grown closer to Jack during that time, stapled together with a few staff members and his friends. 

But Will came to realize, Jack wasn’t someone he could approach . Not because Jack was unfriendly, unkind, or anything- but because of the humble, graceful, incredibly genuine personality that he gave to everyone, on-screen and off-screen. He was the charismatic protagonist of life that people craved, having the type of friendly presence that could be loud,  _ deliberate,  _ and infectious without even lifting a finger.

Will  ~~ hated ~~ understood his own brand of envy and admiration well enough to know that he  _ shouldn’t  _ get close to Jack.

Especially with the black mess on his wrist, spelling out hundred different varieties of  _ ‘illegal’ _ . Will was already grateful that Jack chose not to abide by the SAEA, and he shouldn’t attempt to push his luck too much.

Because of the Soulmark Assessment Employment Alternative  _ (SAEA for short, Parliament fuckers can’t even make a good acronym) _ , he’d be denied 84% of the jobs in the industry. Apparently, his soulmate was deemed to be ‘criminal, high-risk and dangerous’, which meant that Will was a menace to society as well. 

Of course he was, because that was what some people wanted to  _ believe _ . Must make them feel safer, huh- knowing they don’t have to compete with the  _ ‘criminals’  _ for jobs anymore.

So it was as easy as breathing, to accept the fact that he’d be inadequate in Jack’s presence.

Jack was someone to be respected from afar, he was _ success  _ you can catch glimpses of, through the congregation of butterflies around him.

“How’re things been going, Will? I’m sorry that I haven’t checked on all of you lately, it’s been a storm.” Jack approached him as they were packing up one night after a long day of editing, and handed him a cup of steaming coffee.

Will’s heart throbs with how effortlessly kind the gesture was. “Thanks, Jack,” he smiled despite the fatigue, a bit disappointed to set the coffee down immediately as it was scalding hot.

“Is that Will I hear?” Arty calls out from across the room, a tired smile in his voice.

“Go home already, Arty,” Will smiles crookedly, “You sound dead.”

“Pete, don’t forget to tell Will about  _ that thing _ ,” Arty said instead, loud enough to be deliberate.

“Oh. You… bet I will  _ NOT _ ,” Pete answered methodically, shimmying into his suit overcoat, a drastic mismatch to his gardener trousers. “There comes, a time in life, Arty. Where we must settle things face to face. Like men.”

“Hey! Alright, alright…we’ll tell him  _ together _ , Pete.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it.  _ Together _ . Don’t just leave me alone.”

Their laughter faded away into the corridor.

“What- am I being excluded from this conversation?” Will shoots their retreating figures a suspicious glare. “How dare they.”

“If it helps anything, I’ve no idea what they’re on about,” Jack says, raising his hands in protest.

Since Phil was still in the office, Will decided to pester him for answers. Phil’s developed a bit of a soft spot for him, which he takes advantage of sometimes to ask for favors.

He loves Phil’s easy companionship, but Will cannot help but feel a little spoilt from the attention. After Jack leaves, he rolls across the carpet to Phil’s cubicle and without asking, makes himself at home in a small bundle of blankets in the corner, comfortably watching Phil work. 

  
‘ _ How long could I push these boundaries of privacy and personal space before Phil finally snaps and asks to be left alone?’  _ Will dips his toes into the murky depths of his mind, and recoils with the thought. He remembers proposing outlandish ideas just for fun, and Phil laughing with startling earnest as if he was genuinely considering it. Jack’s constant praise for his punctuality, even though Phil was the gust of wind to keep him gliding.

_ He adores Phil, and it makes him scared of himself.  _ Phil was the sunshine, while he was a fickle cloud- which could either smother the sun or frame it beautifully.

When Will reminds Phil about Arty and Pete’s erratic behavior, he doesn’t look surprised but gives one of his high chuckles. “Look, don’t worry too much, okay? I don’t know what  _ nefarious  _ plan they’ve got cooking up, but you’re gonna be okay.”

Will's anxiety drained away with every soft click of the mouse, every clack of the keyboard a soothing balm to the buzzing in his head.

He stays with Phil until they finish editing for the day, giggling to themselves and wrestling for control of the mouse. The moon was hanging bright outside, and Will remembers learning that  _ the moon reflected light from the sun, making it glow. _ What a splendidly bright sun it must be then- he thought, leaning on Phil’s shoulder. Warm and crisp like caramel apples…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, constructive criticism welcome, regarding anything! (you can point out to me if anyone is besides Jack is OOC because I don't watch his videos XD)
> 
> A really really LONG chapter done, yay!


	4. Soothouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Will gets a fright and some mixed signals, but triumphs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will take a while! But I'll do my best to get it out as fast as I can to you guys while maintaining the quality.
> 
> I've decided to redo whole chunks of the plot, so ;-;

It sits at the back of his mind, even when he thinks it’s nothing much to obsess over.

The next day comes too soon, and during their lunch break, shit hits the fan.

“We know, Will,” Arty says, leaning over his cubicle.

“What?” Oh just go on, William. Blubber like a fish. He had no idea what they were going on about- that did not make his weak protest of _what_ any more convincing.

“Come on. You know what we are talking about,” Pete smoothly continues.

“I legitimately do not. I swear, I have no idea.” _Actually, I might have an inkling._ But that was most unlikely. They couldn’t have known, could they-

“Let’s do not torment poor William any further, Arty,” Pete sighs, with an exasperated smile. _Was that a good thing? He was smiling._

“We know that you’ve been putting these little slogans in videos, to start. 'The Dirty Crime Boi', huh. In fact, every video that you edit. That’s… around thirty? And without telling Jack, we presume. Now, care to explain?” 

Nope. Pete smiled 100 percent of the time, in sickness or in good health. He’s capital-letter-Fucked.

“What?” The words tear out of his mouth as a laugh. “What?”

Then came the sinking realization that his job might as well be gone. Contract, terminated.

_The show must go on,_ a smug part of his brain muttered. And with a start (and a sinking feeling), William realizes that he was smiling. A full-on, rapturous grin.

“I’m impressed, guys. You’ve got me!” His voice is shaking a little, high on anxiety and adrenaline.

“Now wait a minute, William,” Arty’s eyes widened.

“-And I’m,” William cut him off- “ _AND_ you probably think I’m edgy as fuck. I don’t care, I’m not scared. I’m twenty and I’m excellent at what I choose to do.”

Pete watches him, with the same wide-eyed expression as Arty.

“Now, what do you want? Going to report me? I’m not going to quit, just so we’re clear.” Arty recoils a little, and his eyes dart to Pete in a thunderclap. Pete raised a single eyebrow loftily, as if to say _and so what?_ And all the wrinkles on his face become mocking lines in the bark of an old tree, casting a disdainful shade on his face.

Will’s smile fades, and- are his eyes stinging a little? He hadn’t wanted to go out like this. Not like this. He was _promised_ an exit with a blaze of glory. He’s worked too hard to get where he was, and everything was moving too fast for him to follow.

His breath stuttered a little- he’d miss them still, in the end. They were the closest thing he had to friends in this workplace. And maybe he's ruined it all with this clusterfuck.

That sends a shrill siren of fear through his heart.

“It was supposed to be _funny_ ,” he stutters, dredging an attempt to save everything.

“It doesn’t matter. You are in deep trouble, kid. It's called malpractice,” Pete says.

“Says who?” He tries to put on an air of bravado, but it comes out brittle. “Let’s pass it off as an editing error, okay? Then we can all go on our way.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Then what the fuck do you want?!” He slams a hand on his table, the blow stinging. “Go ahead, tell Jack. Is there a reason you haven’t yet, huh? If you want money from me- newsflash, I’m not giving you shit.”

“Will, _please-_ ” Arty breaks his silence, but Pete raises a hand and he snaps his mouth shut, teeth clicking audibly.

Pete unsticks himself from the wall of Will's cubicle, dusts his shoulders off. “Kid, your soulmate is a very, very bad person. So by extension, one mistake for _you_ and your job-”

“Fuck them!” Will roars, throwing a fist into the wall, his fingers creaking disturbingly. Pete stills, his hand hovering. “My soulmate has nothing to do with me, god…” He buries his face in his hands, knuckles bruised and fingertips numb. He wills the stinging in his eyes away, takes a few shuddering breaths to prepare.

“Please don’t report me. I’m begging you, alright? It takes more than half-a-year for me to find a new job. This will go on my record. And it will take me a year at least to earn back the money I lost. I will never do this again, promise,” he begs, hands fisted awkwardly into his shirt. He doesn’t care if it’s a promise he can’t keep, doesn’t care what it will do to him. The only words he needs to hear are ‘we won’t tell Jack’.

“And the part about the money?” Pete asks.

He doesn’t hesitate. “Any sum you want.”

Pete’s frown softens into something gentle, something akin to…pity, but not condescension. Maybe he said the right words, did what Pete wanted, whatever the fuck happened there.

“William. There’s been a misunderstanding, and the mistake is on our part. We were never going to report you to Jack,” Pete says.

At this, an interesting rollercoaster of emotions (something akin to shock or… confusion?) flash across Arty’s face, and with soft, hesitant words he continues from where Pete left off as if each sentence was like defusing a bomb.

“We’re saying, that… it’s a…it’s a great idea. We actually find it very interesting. And, Will, listen, in fact- we love the idea so much that me and Pete-” Arty looks to Pete, who nods. “-discussed, and we decided that we want to help you.” His voice was a gentle nudge against William’s foggy brain, a nudge that sent him over the edge of the cliff.

Everything short-circuits when he hits the water.

“You _what?”_ Will croaks.

“As in, we want to help you. With your… whatever you’re doing.” Arty repeated, patiently. Him and Pete were both smiling at him like NPCs or something. Because this had to be a game. This shit couldn’t be real.

“ _What.”_

“We were never going to rat you out. I’m speaking for Arty, when I say that we _don’t_ want to see you go, William,” Pete tells him, smiling.

That sobers him up immediately like a splash of cold water.

“Then why did you- why did you approach me like _that_ ? Beating around the bush like that, you scared me.” His voice breaks. “You- I’m not joking. I was prepared to give up _anything_ for this job.”

He wants to take this lifeline so badly- but it all sounds too good to be true in his head. There were a million different questions of _whywhathow_ all spinning around in a whirlpool. 

“My fault,” Pete says. “I wanted to approach you this way to see how you’d react. Arty tried to tell me that it wasn’t a good idea, that we should have told you off the bat. You’re putting yourself at risk, making yourself vulnerable with the things you are doing.”

“So now you’re telling me to _stop_.”

“No, just telling you that you need to hide it better, that you need someone to back up your innocence. Not too unrealistic, eh?”

“...No.”

“Then there is no need to be worried, William,” Pete says. “It’s just a mutual partnership, from one friend to another.”

What choice does he have? He couldn’t turn them down. Through his two months of working here- he has never doubted the two men’s capabilities. But he’s never worked well in groups, never been a leader, never had more than one person’s vision in his way-

“The risks that are running through your head right now, Will-” Pete leans forward, murmurs under his breath, “That big risk, the one you are terrified about; if you double it, then double that once more, we will still not only be able to cover for you spotlessly, but not a single word of suspicion will reach Jack Massey Welsh’s ear, or cross his mind.” He cocks his head, and settles back with a small smirk.

“Yes.” he agrees softly. Jack Massey’s grinning face flashes across his mind, and William could fall to his knees and sob with relief. He’s just been given the biggest fucking chance of his young life, courtesy of two people who’ve decided to invest in him because they _believe_ in what he’s doing, because they think it’s spectacular and wonderful and original. Out of sheer fucking luck, he’s done what people have tried for _years_ to do- he’s got a team of his own. Yet it feels so heavy on his shoulders, and his head is stuffed with cotton, long past the boundaries of anxious alertness, now treading into the realm of _bad_ bad.

“Thank you,” he says again. It doesn’t seem enough. His knuckles are bruised, but it’s not enough to bleed. His eyes are prickling, but it’s not enough to cry. Everything’s dangling in limbo. Will wants to believe that he’s trembling from excitement, but he’s still terrified and he's _really fucking cold_.

They punch him gently on his shoulders.

“We're here for you, Will.” Arty smiles delicately.

“And a team must have a name,” Pete reminded him, winking.

**5 HOURS LATER, DINNER BREAK**

“Are you okay?” Phil approaches him gingerly. He had the audacity to look guilty. _Goddamn, he was in cahoots with Pete and Arty all along_.

Will doesn’t answer him, instead buries his hands in his hair, and squashes himself further down into Phil’s clump of blankets. 

Phil sighs, “Oh no. They- ugh… Nevermind. How’re you? They didn’t report you, did they?”

Will shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, man.”

“Don’t be,” Will says. “I don’t know why I’m like this. They just wanted to work with me, and I- I just overreacted. Fucking hell.”

“Not your fault. They went about the wrong way. _We_ went about it the wrong way. Phil, Arty and I, we tend to give mixed signals.”

“Yeah, _really_ fucking mixed signals. You guys are great, it’s just- I’m… I got a bit spooked. It’s alright. Stuff happens. Thanks, anyway.”

“It’s not your fault. You’re a champ, you know that? We’ll come out on top, together,” Phil replies.

Will beams. “Sorry for the cursing earlier.”

“Everything’s water under the bridge, man.”

They sit together in companionable silence, Will content to just lean on Phil’s shoulder and rest.

“What are you naming this squad?” Phil muses. Will pauses, turns over the thought in his head.

“Soothouse,” he finally decides, cushioning his head with a pillow as he dozes off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're impatient for our ol' schlatty-boi to appear... he probably will make an appearance around 7 chapters down the road. Can't say for sure. (sorry XD) But we're going into Will's life a little first, and I hope you're entertained by Phil, Pete, and Arty for now.
> 
> Also, I know soothouse isn't actually comprised of these member, but I've never watched Soothouse's videos so this will have to do!
> 
> <3 many loves


	5. ARG

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Will makes a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Another quick update, quicker than I thought. Earlier, I was told some things that made me feel really inadequate— so I hope that everyone reading this knows: you are worth it, you are loved, you DO make a difference.
> 
> Disclaimer: To clarify, the Junko Junsui ARG and the Dark Knight ARG do exist. The Cicada 3301 mystery does exist as well. The rest are simply fictional.

**2 DAYS LATER**  
  
  
“What do you think about an… ARG, guys?” Will asks them, munching on his breakfast sandwich. Pete finishes chewing and swallows slowly. “What is that?”

“An Alternate-Reality Game,” Arty explains, “It’s basically a mystery-sort game set in the real world. I remember there was an ARG back in my university days that was… particularly disturbing.” He frowns, puts down his food with thinly-veiled disgust.

Will exclaims with delight. “Yeah! Yeah, Jun- something. Oh! Junko Junsui! It was… wow. Oh-my-god: That was how I reacted when I saw how it had played out. I was one of the people following very closely behind that ARG, actually. And the Cicada 3301 mysteries? I devoted my secondary school life to that. I _love_ this stuff.” He counts down on each finger, “The Dark Knight ARG, the Amoretta Tapes, the Bohr Industries incident, the C.E.R.N scandal a few years back, and the Vatican mysteries that I’ve been chasing for years now.”

“So you’re good at this. We’re saved, folks!” Phil smirks and leans back. Will punches him solidly on the shoulder, pouting. “Listen, guys—” His voice drops into raspy whisper. “Between us, we can build the greatest unsolved mystery the world has ever seen. We’re four editors, each with a degree under our belt. The four musketeers. How perfect is that? It’s— it’s _biblical,_ is what it is.”

Arty laughs airily, and props a foot on the table. “But we’re just four people, with no experience whatsoever. You _can’t_ just do groundbreaking things like that left and right… these things come like shooting stars, they happen to extraordinary people. On the contrary, we’re quite normal. Not geniuses or anything. This isn’t so bad.”

Will hums, leaning back and letting his gaze wander. Methodical munching drifted through the room, and the pale morning light shone through the panels like soft tissue on his skin, while condensation dotted and gathered on the outside of the windows.

“Lofty goals, I guess,” Arty murmurs, resuming his ferocious attack into his hotdog.

 _Of course_ , Will snorts. Alexander Hamilton had lofty goals. Mohammad Gandhi had lofty goals. Karl Marx had lofty goals. And they turned out to be revolutionaries, founding fathers. He watches the replay of A Little Late with Jack Welsh playing on the broadcast screen attached to a wall. Jack had just finished interviewing… Rebecca Black? Lilly Singh? He gets up, dressed smartly in a suit, and bows. The screen fades to black with thunderous applause. A quick flash of credits— and then nothing. Will tears his eyes away, throws his head down.

His expression must be ugly right now. God forbid anyone sees him like this.

To think that some great men where once paupers stealing bread— he could fucking laugh. Life is such a jester sometimes, isn’t it?

“I want to ask you something—” he says loudly, and they all turn to him. Phil studies him like a hawk, and Will sharpens under his gaze, preening a little on the inside. He takes a deep breath.

“Are you satisfied with being an editor? Being a name that’s in one millisecond of the credits? Because I am not. We work our asses off, twelve fucking hours a day, and the whole entire time we are one mistake away from being fired. What do you and I have our degrees for? Any random person on the street can be taught to… drag and drop and to Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Are we _smart_ , huh? Are we _alive_? Every day I go home to a rented apartment down the street, I take the bus, I pass by thousands of people who won’t miss me. Are _you_ satisfied? If a car was to run me over right now and crunch me up into minced meat and a bloody sponge, would I die satisfied? How can _you_ and _you_ and _you_ in good faith, sit here and wait? What are we waiting for, the ceiling to crumble down?! We’re a bunch of fucking losers.”

“We’re not—”

“Then can you call this winning? It certainly doesn’t feel like it to me.” He chuckles. “The _point_ is to leave something behind, to get something done. To leave your ‘footprint on the god-damn-world’, as people would say. Yeah and whether that’s an oil stain or a patch of blooming daisies I frankly _don’t care_ . I’m tired and I’m done. I sold my soul to this business, now I'm _reclaiming my time_.”

The air-conditioner puffs softly in the background. There was not even the crinkle of plastic, just the stale smell of hotdogs and ham sandwiches wafting upwards to be circulated throughout the room.

Will's hands were shaking a little.

Phil was usually quiet. He preferred to chime in a conversation at appropriate times, let others lead instead. Sometimes he only intervened to complain about Will and Arty’s childishness and their shared love for antagonizing him.

And yet—Phil speaks first, “I’m in.”

Pete nods but doesn’t seem surprised. “Me too.” He shoots Will a discreet wink, eyes curving into proud half-moons.

And they all swiveled to Arty, whose face was quite red. “I… um… is this…”

“We told William that we’ll take care of this, didn’t we Arty?” Pete says, steepling his fingers. Will almost feels sorry for the poor man at that moment.

“Yeah, we did,” Arty sighs eventually, after a few long seconds of silence. “I did tell him. And I won’t go back on my word. How are we going to do this?”

“We don’t do this half-arsed,” Will laughs—“We are putting ourselves on the line here, so if we’re going to do this, we’re going to _do this_ do this. We’re going all out.”

“How… _all out_ are we talking about here, William?” Pete asks. He smiles at the ensuing silence—“Let me draw a few lines in the sand here, kid. We’ve made well clear at this point that what we’re doing is illegal, right?”

He continues after Will’s hesitant nod,“So I know you’re looking for an audience. I know you want this ARG to be big, maybe even… _alarming_. But I draw the line at endangering people.”

“No danger, got it.”

“The same too for involving the authorities.”

“No police, FBI or CIA, done.”

“Complete anonymity.”

“Of course,” Will agrees easily, “But I also have a few terms.”

“Fire them off.”

He counts with each finger, “One, we do not reveal to anyone else that it’s a game, because that defeats the purpose. Two, everyone contributes. Three, no one does _anything_ without vetting that decision. Four, we take this seriously, and if you don’t want to be involved then go, but just don’t—”   
  
“—No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No. One. Is. Quitting,” Pete says, balancing his mug of coffee precariously on his knee. “Me, Arty and Phil won’t back out. How about you?”

Will shakes his head, and the other man smiles pleasantly.

“So, no one quits,” he continues slowly, “And lastly, we keep our promises. So don’t make a deal you can’t keep. _Capiche?_ ”

Pete bursts out laughing. “Yes, I promise.”

“Promise whaaaaat… ?” Will teases, smirking.

Pete smiles wryly, “I promise that I can keep our operations hidden.”

“I promise to…” Phil thinks for a while, and bursts into random chuckles with that high and infectious air. “I promise that I’ll always take you seriously.”

“I promise to try my best,” Arty mumbles with a surprising amount of sincerity.

“I promise, guys—” Will knots his fingers together in a parody of a pinky promise— “I promise that this will be worth it.”

He tells himself this over and over again, heart beating faster with each repetition. The lotus flower in his chest unfurls and blooms into a flame, searing his heart with its heat.

~~(In hindsight, he really should have realised that promises were bullshit.)~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback always welcome~ (p.s. maybe schlatt will make a cameo in the next chapter? Will and Pete are also going to grow closer)


	6. more Similar than Different

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Will experiences hatred in its entirety, and Arty is an unfortunate casualty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS:
> 
> 1\. One use of a homophobic slur  
> 2\. Very very terrible, demeaning insults thrown at Will (my poor boi)  
> 3\. One short instance of bringing up the Holocaust  
> 4\. Mentions of death and general dark themes (illegal activities, war, murder etc.)
> 
> Please skip this chapter if reading about these things might hurt you or make you uncomfortable!  
> Have a nice day, guys :)
> 
> *Friendly Reminder*
> 
> SAEA stands for Soulmark Assessment Employment Alternative. It’s a decree passed to say that: if your soulmate is considered high-risk to society, employers have the authority to not hire you (purely based on your soulmate). Will is hired because his employer (Jack) chose to ignore his soulmate’s high-risk/criminal status.

_ **3 WEEKS LATER** _

  
As the sun falls and rises, the buzz of the air conditioning subsides then starts again, the revving of the office engine. And soon Will was typing away- he imagined himself in a small cottage, in a studio Ghibli film, with warm sun and the gentle breeze caressing, past the tablecloth-turned-curtains, doilies fluttering gently off the kitchen cabinet. He is somewhere else again, an orange-tinted world.

Phil smiles wryly. It faintly reminds him of licorice candy. “Morning, Will.”

He hopes his own hair looks sun-kissed, and his smile is soft enough. “Hi.”

He prays for a perfect morning.

But everyone wants stupid things. It doesn’t mean they should have them.

Someone was fucking arguing. Again. _If someone could quickly put me into cryosleep and unfrost me two hours later, that’ll be awesome._ He identifies Arty’s voice, which was not unusual. Think about the face you make when you witness something unjustifiably silly and uncanny. That was Arty’s default dry humor in varying shades. Will takes a peek over his cubicle (not very hard, his height exceeds the walls anyway). 

He ignores the uncomfortable feeling, the one that signals retreating waves to foreshadow an incoming tsunami. He ducks down again and resumes his editing on the next interview, but can’t stop hearing them because they were so damn _loud_ and _obnoxious_ . Arty got a pass because well- Arty was his friend, so if Arty was arguing, he was doing it on Will’s behalf. And _that_ , Will could get behind.

“What the hell were those transitions, man?”

Will’s interest is piqued again, and he sits up a little straighter to see- Jared, from the production department. He didn’t mean to generalise, but half of the production department, namely Jared, Joshua and Helen (who were currently arguing with Arty) belonged in the dustbin of society. The three fucking stooges, who were admittedly competent at their jobs, but somehow always had a bone to pick with the editing department- Soothouse. Will still remembers, clear as day, that the turf war began most vividly when one of them called him a fag. He’ll remember it forever, probably. It’s alright. There was definitely a ‘homophobic slur’ quota in life, might as well start himself off early. He still hates them, it’s just an uncomfortable, sticky kind of hate to know that they could always offend him before he could offend them.

Arty was wearing that bell-buckled outfit again, the expensive royal one that made him look both Snow White-beautiful and Maleficent-proud. In this state he was quick as a viper, biting out lightning-quick retorts until the victim was paralysed or spasming on the ground, foaming at the mouth. Some days, like today, he would be inexplicably thankful and relieved that Arty was his friend and not his foe.

“Seriously! Last week you cut out the lead-up to the transition, this week you left it in? Can you make a decision? We’re really confused and it’s fucking up the videos,” Jared said, rather fucking obnoxiously.

Arty huffs a laugh.“It depends on the flow and mood of the episode. We cut and keep in moderation. _Moderation_. Look it up in the thesaurus.”

“And who determines the flow? You?” Jared rolls his eyes, and Will’s hand twitches.

“Yes, in fact. It’s why we have 4 editors. Actually, let me rephrase that. We _are_ the fucking flow. We are the reason the episode you’re handing up doesn’t look like Ryan’s Toy Review.”

Helen smirks, and Will is reminded of why he doesn’t miss her. In fact, he’s almost forgotten she existed. Must be a coping mechanism to remove the sheer disgust from his brain. She’s uncannily similar to a llama- spitting on you once within range.

“That’s great and all, but we need you to stick to one. Actually, who’s in charge here?”

From his peripheral vision, Will sees Phil heave a sign and stand up. “I authorised it.” Which was technically true since Phil was usually the one to look through their videos one last time after everyone was done. It gives Will a certain nervous pride, as Phil marches right up to them.

And immediately, Helen pounces like Phil was one of those stupid restaurant owners in an episode of Kitchen Nightmares. “Why’s there no consistency between videos?”

Phil frowns. “There is consistency in the quality, as always. Every video is different in its sound editing, one way or another.”

“That’s- what?! What did we hire you for?”

“Your meaning of consistency is pretty off. What, do you expect them to add a laugh track after every joke? Will that be consistent enough for you?” Phil continues slowly and patiently, gesturing to Arty. “The audience will not look at things like transitions. It is more important to create a good pace and flow, and that includes altering transitions for dramatic effect, for example. So- no, we will continue.”

“We received a complaint, saying that the transitions are weird,” Joshua cuts in.

“From who? And how many?” Arty asks.

“From one of our viewers!”

“ _From who_.”

“Our… our viewers!”

Arty laughs wickedly. “Anonymous, right? Not even a critic. And probably just one.”

Joshua opens his mouth to retort again, but Arty shuts him down in a single flap of the wrist. “Sure, sure. Show us the complaint and we’ll take you seriously.”

Phil tries to suppress a smirk- “I guess we’re done here then, boys and girls.”

Helen makes a noise like a mouse that didn’t get its cheese. “You guys should listen to criticism or you won’t improve and future employers will be reluctant to hire you. This is from what I’ve learnt over the years, so guys better- I swear, young people nowadays never learn. _Also_ , your workplace etiquette is really bad.” Will snorts loudly, and she turns her attention to him. “Especially you, you with the turtleneck there- your soulmate is a criminal, right? And you’re still miraculously hired despite the SAEA, so you better thank Jack’s generosity.”

Will grits his teeth, _not again_. He tells himself that he can remain calm, let the anger wash away from himself.

“I’ve been in this industry for a long time. My last job paid $80,000 a year, before I switched. I’ve seen people like you before, and they never end up well,” Helen continues.

His chest twists when he wonders if they get off to pulling stunts like this.

“So this is your _superiors_ \- we are in charge of _production_ , okay? The final product. This is your _superiors_ telling you to stop doing what you’re doing, because it’s just wrong. And if you’re unsure about anything editing related, just tell us, we’ll refer you to a training center. We’ll cover the costs as well, how about that. No need to pay us back. So don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s the only way for you to improve. Yeah? So _stop with the fucking stupid transitions_.”

“Make me,” Will retorts haughtily, which isn’t smart.

He tries to ignore the way Phil and Arty stiffen. Helen laughs, delighted. Jared and Joshua start sniggering beside her. Will wants to punch them so. Fucking. Bad.

“Come out here,” she beckons him with a single finger. “Come on now, don’t be a pussy. Don’t hide behind that stupid little wall.”

He stands up, fingers curling over his pencil, feeling the liquidy graphite of its sharp point rub off on his fingertip. And he approaches, mechanically, one step at a time like walking on hot coals. He holds it, and it is a glittering blade in his hand. But it is a blade not dulled from catching on bone, it is a bow that does not know the feeling of gliding through the delicate violin strings of muscle and white tendon. He holds it like a knife, and it feels unfamiliar in his hand.

“You’re just an editor. There is an endless supply of graduates much fresher, with higher qualifications than you, waiting to be snatched up. So don’t go all ‘rebellious teen’ on me now.” She snatches up his wrist, fingers tight and nails sharp, clenching around his long sleeves.

Arty rushes forward with a cry, but Joshua socks him right in the nose before he could pry her off of him. It would look comical, Arty falling flat on his ass- if not for the blood dripping from his nose. The blood that was slowly staining the lapel of his cashmere coat red.

Phil rushes to stop the bleeding, strings of curses falling from his mouth, and Arty grimaces, bats him away with the hiss of an alarmed cat.

Will knows why they’re angry, why they’re fucking furious. Touching someone’s wrist- their soulmarked wrist deliberately- it was something sacred, something intimate, something delicate. You don’t just let people _grab_. It’s disgusting. The whole thing is just disgusting. He feels disgusting.

“Why’d you wear all these long sleeves, huh? Why’d you hide it? Did you think it could make you normal? Did you think you could be _good_?”

He knows. He knows he couldn’t be. He will always have the sins of his soulmate weighing on his conscience. But the world just couldn’t let him pretend. The couldn’t let him forget. They’re setting fires to the forests, to smoke the liars out. Soon, he’ll run out of places to hide (from himself or from them?).

“I despise people like you, you know.” She grinds out, and it is the sorrow in her voice, the generations worth of pain and resentment and utter hatred that nearly drives him to his knees like compressed gravity. “My fiance was screwed over because of you fuckers. He died eight months ago, because a fucking swindler took all our operation money. I have two children without their dad, you _fucking son of a bitch._ If it was me, I would have all of you fuckers rounded up and investigated. ‘ _High-risk_ ’? Bullshit. The government only knows how to sugarcoat. I bet half of you have fucked someone over already. Fucking- fucking _criminals_ , that’s what you are.”

He knows it will happen, maybe in another two decades or so, when the world government, the UN, will cease to give a fuck and just wipe people like him out. People with criminals for soulmates. After all, it only took so few years before the Nazis came after the Jews. It took so few years before the Final Solution.  
 _Like he was a fucking_ **_problem_ ** _to be solved._

_Was this how it felt to be in a minority? In two decades, he’ll probably know what it is like to be endangered._

She grips his wrist tighter, and his bones creak. It hurts.

Will wants to take a shower. He bites his lip and tries not to shake, tries not to choke on the humiliation, on the feeling that he’s been stripped bare.

It reminds him of the dreams he had as a child, being naked in the school halls.

Helen tugs his wrist closer, hard. It’s a mockery of intimacy, and it makes his skin crawl. He’s tainted now. Then again, maybe he always was. Arty lunges but he’s held back, crushed by brute force. Phil is snarling something, probably giving up on negotiating, and he has bruises on his cheek and eyes.

She tears back his sleeve and rips off the band-aid. His other hand is still around his pencil, knuckles white and trembling. The torrent of red comes rapid, sudden clairvoyance, spontaneous combustion of _everything_ , his hand

comes up

The pencil is in her throat.

His face is wet.

He blinks once. Twice. Blinks the haze of red away, and she is still here, standing. His pencil is hovering in mid-air, still pathetically far away from doing any damage. But it’s the _closest_ he’s ever been. His head pounds, breath stuck, and before he knows it she has knocked the pencil away from his hand. It lands on the floor with a hollow _thuk_ , a glittering knife embellished with jewels, unmarred and unused. A movie prop. Far from the real thing.

Her lips curl, and he knows with sinking heart that she is _not surprised_. 

Will is enraged by his own helplessness. His fingers spasm, and for a moment he thinks of replacing the pencil with her thin neck.

“What’s this?” she laughs, expression ugly. “What were you thinking, huh?”

He could easily choke her. He’s strong enough for that, he’s much taller. ~~He could kill her~~ ~~.~~ And he thinks about it, because death is a beautiful thing. It is a scarlet scarab. It is endothermic fire.

But he can’t do it. Death, is a difficult thing. It is a flightless bird. It is a finless shark.

“You murderous psycho,” she laughs, and holds up his wrist. He lets her, because there is nothing else he knows to do. “Let’s see what shit your soulmate did today, yeah?”

“Get your fucking hands off him,” Phil cries, his voice like roaring water, and Helen laughs.

Will hears the little _beep_ of a camera, knows they’re recording.

And just like that, Will breaks.

“Read it, you _bitch-”_ he snarls. Revels in the hatred of his own voice, puts his last breath in every word, thinks _oh... wrath feels splendid._

“What has Will’s soulmate done today?”she announces to the room.

“ **Assault**! That’s about right.”

_There is a sickening feeling stirring in Will’s chest. It is Newton’s Apple falling upwards, reversed gravity- something that wasn’t supposed to exist, forbidden, against every law he has ever known, against everything that he’s sworn to believe._

_It was exalted pride._

“Are you scared?” he asks.

Her gaze is hare-wild, and Will is relieved, _so relieved_ to realize that she was just as terrified as he was.

What fucking irony.

* * *

  
“Jesus, Will,” Pete says after the merry crew had gone back upstairs. “Are you okay?”

“How long have you been standing there?” Arty asks, nursing his injured nose. Blood was still trickling out in a steady _drip drip_. Phil leans against his cubicle, rubbing cream on his bruised eye.

Pete grimaces. “Not long. But long enough.”

Will’s lip spasms. “Fuck you.”

Phil reaches out towards him, and he flinches away. He does want to feel Phil’s hand on his back, over his scalp. He does want to be the little brother. Just not right now. Right now, nothing felt right.

”We’re going to the hospital, okay? Me and Arty,” Phil says, his hand hovering awkwardly.

Will mind drifts for a while before snapping back to his body- ”Shit. Arty. Fuck!”

Phil springs forward, alarmed. “Woah, Will, hey, calm down.”

”How can you say that? You’re- you’re bleeding.” There was blood over Arty, _so much_ of it. It’s brown and drying and it just doesn’t belong. It shouldn’t be on his hands, on his neck. My god, there’s blood _everywhere_.

They hurt his friend. They made him bleed. And he couldn’t even stop them.

Arty’s arms are around him, he could feel a smile in the crook of his neck, lips sticky with blood, and Arty’s laughing _Will, I’m fine, alright? You’re such a worrier. I’m fine, I really am..._

* * *

_It takes him all afternoon to rebuild the shattered scraps of his mind, glueing together wooden frames and filling in the cracks with pulp (he doesn’t know kintsugi). It took ten minutes to destroy a palace he’s built for years._

_By the end of that day, the afternoon’s events were a noir film that had played thousands of times, his words a vinyl spun endlessly in the library of his thoughts. He switches off the projector, prepares a fresh roll of film. The library is glazed cherry wood, skyscraper bookshelves. Ladders, grainy old film, with piano playing faintly and the smell of pine-liquor. He switches off the lights, and Fur Elise fades out._

“Will.”

Huh?

“Will?” It was Pete.

He startles a little. “Yeah?”

“Wanna come and have a drink with me? I know a good place.”

“... Okay.” _He wants the night to end. But he also doesn’t want to be alone._

_The piano is replaced with smooth jazz. Will switches the lights back on, digs out his polaroid camera from the library shelves, settles in for a drowsy evening._

They get into the cab. Pete puts out a hand gingerly, and Will takes it, grips it tight, feels the lines of age and calluses where they shouldn’t be.

“Your soulmate…” Pete starts.

“ _Mine_ ,” Will confesses.

Pete smiles.

“Yours.” And it sounds like a promise.

“He does many bad things, but he still could be a very remarkable person. And it does not make him any less capable.” Pete says after a while. “In fact, I would say he is opportunistic. He is courageous. He’s human. And we are all more similar than we are different.”

Will looks at him dryly. “I don’t want someone remarkable or competent. I want someone _good_.”

Pete hums. “That’s not a fair thing to expect from your soulmate, William. They might be in situations where they’re forced to go against their own morals. They may be doing it for preservation. Maybe they’ve been roped in at a young age and never knew how to stop. They could have been born in a bad neighborhood, knew the wrong crowd.”

Will looks out the window to the pitch black darkness.

“William.” Pete’s words bring him back, and Will turns to face him reluctantly.

“ _Most importantly_ , I don’t want you to expect goodness from your soulmate, because you then put the same expectations on yourself. That is too much to carry, even for you.”

“Are you telling me that- that I can’t be _good_?”

“I’m telling you to _just be yourself_.”

The cab is silent, the street is silent, and Pete’s words are deafening.

“What makes you think that a hooligan like my soulmate is remotely _competent_ , anyway?”

Pete laughs loudly, and Will feels oddly left out of some inside joke.

“ _Hooligan?_ Is that really what you think your soulmate is, William?”

  
Defiantly, he nods.

“Let me tell you a story. About one of my closest acquaintances. So yes, I know this man called… let’s call him Jebediah. He is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever had the chance to meet.”

“Am I among that?” Will blurts out.

“Among what?”

“The… nevermind.” _One of the most brilliant people you’ve ever met._

Pete continues. “I knew Jebediah when he was a young man just like you. He started going rogue when he was around eighteen. It was because of a group of his university friends at that time, they- yeah. And I didn’t think much of him at first, but would you believe it… by age twenty-four he had built one of the most profitable Ponzi Schemes in the world. Business, finance… he just had a natural affinity for it. He was- oh, he was _gluttonous_ . _Greedy_ . That hunger for gold you know- the accumulation of wealth… is probably what brought him so far. He’s had his paws in everything. You name it. Crypto. Pyramid. Insurance fraud. Money laundering. Embezzlement. Tax evasion. Mortgage fraud. And he’s well-recognized for all of them. He knows the economy and the market better than anyone. In the upper circles, they call him Baphomet of Wall Street. _But that’s not the point.”_

Pete sighs heavily. “The point is- he works his ass off, day and night, like you and me. He cries. I’ve seen him cry. I’ve seen him break down in tears in the middle of a meeting, because he forgot to account for one percentage. I’ve seen him have a panic attack when talking to potential investors. I’ve seen him go through depression and back. He was forced to quit alcohol for a while because the doctors warned him of liver damage. The withdrawal was… it was _bad_. When he was running his cryptocurrency fraud- he slept two hours a day. And that continued for weeks. He stayed away from drugs, not because he was a good person, but because it would lower his cognitive ability. He ran from the cops, the feds, from Argentina to Canada, sleeping in the back of trucks. He crossed the border illegally. He’s been in active war zones, out of desperation, and was shot by people from his own country. He survived that injury, by the breath of a hair. They had to resuscitate him twice.”

Pete lowers his gaze. “He invested money into the frauds and scams of others to see how they operated. A _lot_ of money. And afterwards, he does the same as them but earns ten times, twenty times as much. _And the funniest thing? He’s lost more than half of the money he earned so far._ ”

“How?”

Pete squeezes his hand a little tighter, and his voice is rough when he says, “Life. Living. It’s expensive to stay alive.” He takes a deep breath- “But I’ve also seen him smile. Like you’re doing, right now.”

Will hadn’t realized he _was_ smiling. It was a smile he had when he felt nostalgic for something he hadn’t experienced. A sort of longing.

Pete chuckles. “I see that same spark in you… it’s amazing. Whatever you choose to do, you’ll be great at it. You’re better than the best of us, William.”

Will’s eyes are prickling a little. _Please don’t cry, please don’t cry, I’m really ugly when I cry._

The alarm in the cab beeps. It’s 12am now. The beginning of a new day. Will rolls down his sleeve, and there is a bracelet of bruises around his wrist.

Pete exhales shakily, “Jesus…”

The soulmark on his wrist is fading. Pete’s gaze catches on it and lingers, burning with curiosity, before he turns his head away quickly.

“It’s okay,” Will hears himself say,”You can look.”

The both of them watch, transfixed, as the soulmark twists and morphs, bold and capitalized font sliding through his skin, flicking and pulsing like cuttlefish skin-

into the word ALCOHOLISM.

Will laughs, a short huff of surprise, and Pete is chuckling with amusement as well.

“Guess we’ll match him on that today, yeah?” Pete says, and slowly starts to roll back the sleeves of his own blazer. _He’s trembling_ , Will thinks in wonder. And Pete rips off the band-aid over his soulmark with a snap, like it was a raw wound. His skin is lighter where the band-aid was, a little strip of highlighter.

There, in slanted American Typewriter, was the word _Alcoholism._

**_We are all more similar than we are different._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Pete and Will are NOT soulmates, I DON’T ship, they are pretty much father-and-son. The first time you meet your soulmate, your soulmark would say ‘meet your soulmate’. So there’s that. I dunno why I’m clarifying this lol
> 
> *Baphomet is a goat demon, I felt it would be on brand for Schlatt.
> 
> *Jebediah is Schlatt ;)
> 
> *I know nothing about editing, so yes, I was talking out of my ass with this one
> 
> Reviews and any points of confusion always appreciated.


	7. Jebediah.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pete enjoys Schlatt's company, and sweet sweet domestic bliss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important Note (CONTEXT):
> 
> What is anthrax?
> 
> It is a serious infectious disease. If a bioterrorist attack were to happen, Bacillus anthracis, the bacteria that causes anthrax, would be one of the biological agents most likely to be used. Anthrax has been used as a weapon around the world for nearly a century. In 2001, powdered anthrax spores were deliberately put into letters that were mailed through the U.S. postal system. Twenty-two people, including 12 mail handlers, got anthrax, and five of these 22 people died.

  1. Pete is not married, and he’s never met his soulmate.
  2. Pete is not quite good, and not quite bad either. Is that what they call _grey_?
  3. Will is starting to like grey.



These are the things Will knows about Pete.

  1. William is a young man with a lot of darkness in him.
  2. William has got a jagged shine about him.
  3. Pete is starting to like those rough edges.



These are the things Pete knows about William.

These are the things Pete compartmentalises when he looks at the young man across him, currently sipping on his whisky. He had wanted to buy a cup of hot chocolate for the kid, but William had gone straight for a whisky, currently huddled over it like some sort of washed-up college student. Pete decides that he doesn’t like the image. He much prefers to have a mug of hot chocolate fogging up the kid’s face, chocolate on his lips and in his teeth, smiling ruddily like the hearth in winter. His gaze wanders for a moment, tuning out William’s soft chatter. He thinks of himself smiling as he leads William into the cab, him who held William’s hand and shared soulmarks like they were going on a camping trip.

Pete has seen families with their children, as he wandered down the avenue on his way to work. Sipping on lemonade at the sidewalk, skidding on ice, laughing that twinkling little laugh. He has gone to his friends’ funerals, over and over, seen caskets lowered into the ground, ashes scattered over a cliff into the ocean, their sons and daughters crying and reading out their eulogies of love and fulfilled lives. He has seen their epitaphs. _Rest in Peace, devoted father—_

Pete is selfish, his time is running out, and oh… he wants one for his own. He doesn’t want to die alone anymore.

William takes another sip of the whisky. Pete’s gaze is unfocused, he’s daydreaming, but he still notices the way William’s eyes flutter shut as the searing alcohol makes its way down. William was objectively… what people would call _pretty_. He could see it, of course, everyone could see it. Fluffy brown hair, a nice smile, a nose with a soft slope, plump pink lips, pianist fingers and a good figure. Pete didn’t care much for those traits, although he had to admit that they could be useful, dangerous even. But William’s scheming, his brilliant charisma, his idealism, ambition, fierce loyalty— those were things Pete wanted in a son.

_No. You don’t want a son_ , he reminds himself angrily. _You want a_ _legacy_ _. You want a_ _protege_ _._

They were talking about philosophy, geography, anything that came to mind. Pete was perfectly content to let Will lead the conversation at this point. The kid was impressively well-versed in general trivia, though of course not as much as himself. Then again, he hasn’t met anyone who was. Jebediah had tried, heavily persuaded by his acquaintances. The operative word being _tried._ Pete suppresses a grimace at the thought of the businessman.

“Pete?” Will was looking at him intently. Pete flinches, but he’s learned to redirect it into another movement, this time leaning back into the seat. 

“William.”

William falls silent again. Pete cannot always completely comprehend what he’s thinking, but right now he’s got a pretty clear idea. It is clear from the kid’s dilated pupils, so dark it was almost black, like looking through the crimson stained-glass panes of a cathedral. He is a soft butterfly landing on the edge of William’s knife.

Ah. Kids really do grow up too fast these days.

“Talk to me, William.”

Annoyance flashes across William’s face, twisting his features a little bit.

“I _have_ been talking. We’ve talked. What more do you want me to say?”

Pete internally berates himself for leading with such a stupid line. “You’re still angry.”

“You won’t get it. You mostly weren’t there when it happened,” William replies, but his voice has no trace of accusation in it.

Pete thinks about the scene he saw when he entered the office. The woman announcing William’s soulmark, holding his wrist, and she had the _audacity_ to fuck around with his—

His kid? His coworker? His… Pete settles on _apprentice._

But it is not her that gets him angry. He knows there will always be resentment in this world, the bullies, the adversaries, and the prejudices. There was _so much_ of it, an extravagant, ridiculous excess. He knows her— Helen’s anger like he knows his own soulmark. It was a _knowing_ borne of first-hand experience, a reluctant and unhealthy sort of intimacy. He’s too tired to wax poetry or philosophize about redemption or condemnation anymore.

What makes him more furious than anything was that he wasn’t there.

He thinks about William— frozen with fear like a child, like a little boy, weak. He wishes he was there to bring back the young man he’s seen before, laughing with sharp confidence and giggling with mischievous glee.

But then they started recording him, and in the spotlight at that last moment, the darkness in William emerged and bared its fangs, vicious and snarling like a cornered beast.

He could still hear William’s words: _Read it, you bitch._

Pete thinks of William’s bloody hands, smearing desperately at Arty’s face, Arty’s broken nose. Blood looks uncannily good on the kid, like streaks of blusher or rouge making his eyes sharper, drawing attention to all the different angles of his face and neck and collarbones. There had been a grandeur about him, an opera-house vermillion, or a Renaissance painting. William was changing. Boys do grow up too fast nowadays. It’s a reassurance, knowing he can look forward to who William is going to become.

_I know what he is. I’ve seen the pencil in his hand. If I let myself forget, then I am a fool. I brought him to a bar, not a bloody cafe._

“We need to start doing something other than leaving our tags in videos, Pete. It’s been more than three weeks. I’m tired of waiting,” William says.

“We should start on the ARG, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah.” William buries his face in his hands, then takes another swig of whisky.

Pete frowns, and prys the kid’s hand away. “Don’t drink so fast. You’re gonna get wasted too quickly if you do that.”

“Yeah, that’s the fucking point.” William refuses to meet his eyes, and reaches out for the glass. “Give me back my goddamn drink.”

Annoyance flares in him at the kid’s sudden drunken unhingedness. Pete smacks him lightly. “Don’t use vulgarities like that, William.”

“You don’t tell me what to do—!” William snaps, and his hand darts out, lightning-quick. Pete grabs his arm easily (makes sure not to go anywhere near the kid's wrist), and pins it to the table like taming a feral cat. “Hey, hey. _Hey_. Stop it. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“No, no, counselling is over, okay? Drop it, I just want—” William hiccups, his voice breaking— “I’m over this shit.”

Pete panics internally. This is something he doesn’t quite know how to handle. The youths he dealt before hated affection—William drank it in, whether he knew it or not. Then again, he’s never met anyone as special as William.

So Pete needs to be strong.

“Don’t worry, okay? You’re such a worrier. The ARG is going to be fine. We’re going to deal with everything that’s happened today, one step at a time. You’re not going to do everything by yourself. Hey, hey. _William._ Look at me, okay?” He crosses over to William’s side of the seat, slides in despite the kid’s half-hearted noise of annoyance.

“Don’t panic. Breathe, okay?” William still doesn’t look at him, wary and hunched over like a child being reprimanded.

He puts a fond smile on his own face, reaches out and ruffles William’s hair, rehearsing Phil’s movements. “You… are such a worrier.”

Only then does William look at him, doe eyes downturned, lashes twitching, brow drawn into a tight line.

And the weakness— it should disgust him, frustrate him like it usually does, but it doesn’t.

_He hopes the kid can see that. He hopes the kid knows it’s endearing. He hopes, hopes for what he doesn’t know how to say._

“William,” he says finally, dragging the word out, and is surprised by the reverence in his own voice. “What do you need?”

And _there_ , the fire in the boy’s eyes return.

“Tell me what to do,” William says, voice quiet and alcohol-dampened, like a molotov.

Good. Good. Wonderful.

“I want you to talk to Jebediah, and get some inspiration for the ARG.” he can barely keep the excitement out of his voice.

A mixture of uncertainty and surprise flashes across William’s face, but it doesn’t linger. Of course. One never expects legends or stories to be as real as they come. Pete blinks— “Is that okay?”

“I’ll do it,” William sounds slightly out of breath.

“Okay. Stay here. I’ll text him.” Pete moves back to his side, and he sees William twitch.

**P: You up?**

**J: what do u want**

**P: You free?**

**J: wHAT**

**P: I have someone who wants to meet you.**

**J: refer them to work email**

**J: dumbass**

**P: Not business. Just interested in talking.**

**J: bullshit lol**

**J: this shit doesnt work on me anymore**

**J: wtf do they want**

**P: He wants advice.**

**P: Can I let him explain?**

**J: no**

**P: Are you busy?**

**J: yes**

**P: With what?**

**J: fuck off**

**P: One call. Come on. I kept you alive in Bhutan last month.**

**J: fuck you**

**J: ok fine**

**J: who the fuck is this guy anyway**

**P: My friend. Please be civil with him, I’ve told him a lot about you.**

**J: He’s in the mafia** **, right?**

**J: …???**

**P: He’s not.**

**J: WTF**

**J: AND YOU TOLD HIM ABOUT ME**

**J: WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU**

**J: SENILE PIECE OF SHIT**

**J: Fix this. Now. Take the fucker out. I fucking mean it.**

**P: This kid’s different.**

**J: Bullshit.**

**P: This kid is different from the rest. I’ve been in this business for a long time. Have my instincts been wrong?**

**J: Rarely. But still.**

**P: Anyway, I have a feeling you’ll like him too. He’s five years younger than you.**

**J: whats his name**

**P: Just call him Will.**

**J: what, ur not even gonna gimme a chance to do background check on him**

**P: Just call me.**

**J: never again, do u hear me**

**J: im not a fuckin therapist**

Pete’s phone rings and he can see William sit a little straighter. “Just be yourself,” he advises, and William nods slowly, making a visible effort to relax his shoulders. The alcohol probably would have loosened the kid’s tongue at this point. Against Jebediah’s verbal rally though… Pete was starting to regret this decision a little bit. Admittedly, it was made with adrenaline still pumping hard through his blood.

He takes the call, and it doesn’t take long for Schlatt’s voice to filter through.

“Hey. Why am I here, Will?” 

Pete sees William freeze up. Needless to say, Schlatt always catches people off guard. Everyone expects the boyish, smug voice of a dashing CEO, never the slimy drawl of a Wall Street Wolf.

“You’re here because I asked for you,” the kid replies, and his eyes widen almost comically when what he just said had registered in his brain. Pete wonders, with some glee, if William had forgotten who he was talking to.

Schlatt is silent for a while, and there’s alarm in William’s voice when he backtracks, “Uh— I didn’t mean that, I’m just a little tipsy right now—”

But then Schlatt laughs, a burst of loud roaring laughter for which Pete had to quickly cover the mic of the phone for, muffling the sound into bursts of static. “I don’t bite. Don’t mince your words around me,” Schlatt says after the guffaws stop.

Schlatt introduces himself as Jebediah, as he always does.

“I just remembered— Jebediah sounds Hebrew,” William points out. Pete can’t help but smirk. _Clever._

Schlatt hums. “Yes. Don’t give yourself a headache about it.” His voice is level, contemplative. “You haven’t answered my question. Why am I here?”

William seems to get the hint not to beat around the bush any longer. “I need your advice on something. It’s an ARG. An Alternate Reality Game. Like Cicada 3301, if you know it.”

Schlatt scoffs. “Of course I know it, kid. I was one of the guys profiting from the fucking operation. Still am, by the way. You _do_ know who I am right? A fucking ARG? This isn’t Little League. Pete, you really made me call? For _this shit_?”

William rolls his eyes. “ _Oh please,_ no one’s asking you to get emotionally invested. I myself was under the impression you were a lot more than this.”

“You know what they say: never meet your heroes. What were you expecting? More what— generosity?”

“I know better than to expect generosity from a capitalist,” William replies, and Schlatt barks out laughter again.

The frown on William’s face slowly morphs into a smirk, and _red flag, red flag, the brat’s got something up his sleeve again_. William speaks again, tentatively pronouncing each word, the picture-perfect image of innocence. “Hm… maybe, I wanted to see someone with more guts. Or are you not experienced enough in this field to help me?” He cocks his head and bats his eyelashes at Pete, smiling like a fucking cupid.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Oh, I—” Schlatt falls silent all of a sudden. “You’re trying to rile me up, aren’t you?”

William fucking _giggles_. “Maybe. Is it working?”

Pete thinks he must be dreaming.

Schlatt makes an affronted noise and curses softly. “Shameless son of a bitch.” His voice has something different to it, this time. Pete replays it in his alcohol-laden brain a few times until he vaguely identifies it as _curiosity_.

William giggles again, and Schlatt sighs. “What’s the purpose of making this ARG?”

“The original purpose was for attention. Things are different now. I _also_ want revenge on some people.” Huh. William could be incredibly honest with himself when not sober. Pete really should do this more often.

“Revenge, eh? I’ve always liked a good underdog, you know,” Schlatt purrs, “I have fun showing them their place. They fall over and over, so _weak_ , but then eventually rise up and fuck up the status quo. You hate to see it. But hey, it's in their nature. And _naturally_ , When our paths cross too much, I will put you down.”

Goosebumps run down William’s arms. "Oh," he says.

“Ah, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Schlatt says. Pete can hear a smile in his voice. He could imagine Schlatt right now, lounging on his sofa with a glass of cider, kicking up his polished oxfords, blazer thrown over his lap.

“I’m not scared,” William replies, which was as stupid as he could get.

Schlatt hums in response, dismissive. The sound of fabric at the other end signaled him stripping out of his suit. It continued for a while, punctuated by occasional yawns. Then there was the heavy rustling of sheets. God, Pete doesn’t want to think about the thread count of his Egyptian cotton bedspread right now. The minutes tick by, and William’s knuckles grow whiter by the second.

“You’re lucky I don’t know who or where you are yet,” Schlatt says as an afterthought, groaning as he stretched and the joints of his spine popped. “Don’t make that mistake again.”

 _William’s a clever boy, always has been._ Pete is satisfied with how his eyes sharpen.

“Anyway…” Schlatt yawns once more, and by the way William’s eyelids are starting to droop as well, Pete could tell they were both slightly unfocused. “... Revenge. I'm all about that. The greatest act of revenge in the bible was as follows. Moses asked the Pharaoh to let the enslaved Israelites go, but he wouldn’t.”

“So God turned the Nile, along with all the water in the land, was turned into blood. Frogs covered the land. The dust was turned into gnats. Flies fill the house and land of Egypt. All their livestock die. Boils break out on them. But the Pharaoh would not let the Isralites go,” William murmurs, “Then hail strikes down on everything in the fields. Locusts devour every tree and plant. Darkness covers Egypt for three days. But still, the Pharaoh does not let the Israelites go.” 

Schlatt continues— “So God sent the death angel to kill the first-born child of every family and the firstborn of every animal. The Bible says that there was loud crying in Egypt for there was not a household without someone dead. The smell of rot could reach the heavens itself.”

William opens his mouth, then closes it. Pete sees his brows furrow slightly in concentration. “You’re proposing a plague for the ARG,” he says slowly.

“You _do_ do your bible study,” Schlatt says.

“I have a good teacher,” William replies, and his words are sincere. Pete’s heart trembles a little, pushing laughter out from his lungs. William looks up as him, and smiles widely.

William leans forward, steeples his fingers. His sleep-laden eyelids droop, before snapping open again. He stands up to get a glass of water, stumbling slightly in the process. When he returns to his seat, his fingers and shirt are wet with small splashes. Then he starts to sip.

Pete tracks the small motions on William’s face, the gradually deepening frown and the way he worries at his bottom lip. Minutes tick by, and the other end of the phone is silent. William’s eyes flicker to the phone.  
“Hey,” Pete says, and taps at William’s fingers to get his attention. “No rush. If he doesn’t wait, it’s his loss.”

William puts his head down, and so they wait.

And wait.

William utters the word, “anthrax” a minute later— like one would say “I love you”, soft and delicate, a paper-thin whisper you send the fickle wind to carry, taking a gamble for the other person to receive it. A confession of the shadows.

“What did you say, William?” Pete asks. He needs to hear it out of William’s mouth once more. William lifts his head up, stares at his mug, but doesn’t respond. _He’s waiting for Schlatt’s response,_ Pete realizes. You don’t confess twice. Either they hear it the first time or they don’t. 

A minute passes before Schlatt says,“You’re not serious enough to pull off what you’re proposing.”

“I need some more time,” William says. He sounds confused.

 _Wasn’t this Pete’s nightmare? William at war with himself?_ It wasn’t a thing of grand retrospective wonder like the World Wars— this, seeing this, this is feral carnage. This is the slaughter of a butcher’s shop. This is William tearing himself apart from the inside. He’s scared of himself, _again._ Again and again and again William becomes his own worst enemy, his conscience ripping him apart.

“Have you used it on someone before?” William changes the conversation. Schlatt gives a slow tsk-tsk.

“I’m a businessman. How would I maintain my clientele if I kill people left and right?”

William flinches.

“Someone has used it on me before. _Tried to_ , at least,” Schlatt continues.

“Why didn’t you die?” William asks, and knowing the kid, it’s a genuine question— but he _demands_ it, _demands_ to know, and his voice is vengeance and brokenness. Pete knows what he’s thinking, it’s what they always think— _How could you live? Why? How could you live after everything you’ve done? How did you negate karma? How did you cheat divine judgement?_

Schlatt laughs coldly, and there is ice in Pete’s veins.

“You sound unhappy about that, Wilbur,”Schlatt says cheerily. “If I _didn’t know any better_ , I’d say you wanted me dead.”

William doesn’t say a thing.

 _It’s either because he’s not sure or he’s guilty_ , Pete thinks. 

“To answer your question, I was vaccinated,” Schlatt continues, “and it had no effect.”

William’s expression is unreadable. “That’s enough for today. I’ll think it over.” His words are starting to softly fade out.

Schlatt chuckles—“I don’t give favours for free. Answer one question, and I’ll let you go.”

William frowns, but he lays his head on the table and agrees.

“Have I lived up to your expectations?” Schlatt asks. Pete couldn’t tell if he sincerely cared about William’s response. Schlatt never did anything without a goal in mind. This question could be misdirection. A distraction. No, perhaps he genuinely wanted to know. Was he trying to gauge William’s… _no, how much Schlatt gains from this question depends on how William answers._ _That was strange._ Schlatt usually doesn’t like asking open-ended questions, doesn’t like asking questions that he can’t predict the answers to, doesn’t like asking questions that are harmless.

The standard, correct way to answer this question was to give Schlatt as little information to work with as possible, Pete knows from experience.

“Looking back, you don’t surprise me,” William muses. “You’re very dangerous. But I knew that because Pete told me so. And I’m not prepared for it, but I expected it. I’m comfortable with you. I’m comfortable with that. I think this was what you wanted.”

Pete’s surprised William is aware of it— that sense of security Schlatt’s trying to lull him into. He’s more alarmed by the fact that William’s just letting it happen, that William is being so utterly transparent about his thoughts. 

William hasn’t let anyone this far into his head, not even Pete. So why the fuck would he let Schlatt—

Pete recalls William’s soft, steady words: _Tell me what to do._

William’s mostly exhausted his pre-emptive knowledge on Schlatt so far, and Pete had stopped guiding him along by this point. Was that why he let his guard down? No. William was smarter than that. Perhaps, just perhaps, without Pete’s guidance, the kid was starting to subconsciously move on his own— experimenting with truth or lie, sincerity or manipulation, soft or harsh, testing what Schlatt responds to best.

_Regardless, he can’t win in Schlatt’s brand of 4D chess, on Schlatt’s chessboard, with Schlatt’s pieces, by Schlatt’s rules._

Pete has known Schlatt for nine years, yet he doesn’t know the board, doesn’t know the rules. Doesn’t really understand the entire enigma that was Schlatt. Not for a lack of trying, of course. In the beginning, he pried and he prodded, he blackmailed and he threatened, bought favors here and there. It doesn’t work, it never does. He peels back one lie after another, cuts and dissects, but the mask always stays.

By the seventh year, when Schlatt’s walls are stacked green bills, and his heart is the cigarette-smoke gas chamber of a casino,

Pete learns not to play.

_William has never been in more danger than he is right now_ , Pete knows.

Schlatt yawns and William follows afterwards. “‘M tired,” William sighs, and Pete wants nothing more than to tuck him into bed.

The kid sits upright with great effort, then falls face flat on the table again. Pete dashes forward to stop him from breaking his nose.

Schlatt’s speech is slurring. “Night, William.”

William’s fast asleep already, and Pete heaves a sigh, reaches across the table to massage the bare skin of William’s neck. _The kid’s gonna catch a cold at this rate._ “The kid’s asleep, Schlatt. He’s fucking wasted.”

There is a sudden rustle of sheets on the other end, and when Schlatt speaks again, his voice is completely clear, devoid of any fatigue. The change makes Pete pause, but he’s been subjected to this kind of thing so frequently that it no longer makes him flinch. Schlatt’s acting could be uncanny.

“We are going to negotiate conditions. I’m interested in making a deal.”

“Regarding Will?”

“Who else?” Schlatt chuckles darkly. “Tentatively, I want one more phone call with him. You and I both benefit. You want him to get some help from me. And I want to talk to him more.”

That was true. If William was to gain any ground later on, he should start networking early. And Schlatt was the perfect resource for that purpose. Pete had predicted that Schlatt would be curious about William, and it was going according to plan, but everything was happening a little too fast for his liking.

“Do not try anything with him, Schlatt,” Pete tells him.

Schlatt ignores him. “I _still_ don’t know what you’re planning to do to him, you know,” he says.

“Do not approach him directly. Do not trace or track him,” Pete pauses. “Do not attempt to recruit him. Have I made myself clear?”

“My Familia doesn’t want your leftovers,” Schlatt says.

It stings slightly. _Leftovers_ , huh. Was that how Schlatt saw William?

Pete sends William home eventually.

He tucks William in. He prepares a hot glass of water that he knows will get cold in the morning, goes to the local pharmacy to buy hangover medicine, and leaves it by William’s bed.

Like a good father does.

He smokes three cigarettes on the balcony to wash the dangerous, addictive feeling of domesticity away from his lungs, and wishes he could cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing schlatt broke me
> 
> hes not even at 50% power yet
> 
> don't worry

**Author's Note:**

> Please, judge my writing as harshly as possible (constructively). I will be very thankful towards all of your feedback <3


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